The City of The Hague: Why don’t you contact @GroenLinksDH to discuss this issue?”

I have lived in the city since the end of 2009 and I love the Hague! But when we came back from our trip to Pakistan I really started noticing how many bottles and cans are everywhere, on top of all the other trash in the streets. I guess I started noticing it because I saw a lot of the same in Pakistan but always thought to myself “at least it’s better in Holland”…but that isn’t even true.

I come from Iceland and there you get 5 cents for bottles and cans, so that means that the poor and also kids that are fundraising are always cleaning up and even go through other people’s trash to make sure that they get recycled.

Can’t we do the same here? We are already paying 25 cents for the big bottles, why not 5 cents for the rest?

And can’t we start being stricter giving people a fine that litter? There are some countries that have a litter police, we could hire some of the homeless people and give them a new chance in life.

I also thought about creating a fee for all rubbish that you get back when you recycle, kind of like what we are already doing with the big plastic bottles. But that will be more work and is for latter, while these ideas can be implemented right away.

Thank you for your attention and I’m looking forward to your feedback.

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So what do the rest of you think? What can we do to turn this city around?

Terrorist and Trolls

It is heartbreaking what happened in Manchester, United Kingdom but what takes the cake is the #FakeNews following it. I never post BuzzFeed articles but it was the most comprehensive source that I found when I’m writing this.

And one thing that I like to add is that its not helpful that we are using every opportunity to “promote” ISIS. We have to change the narrative and highlight that these acts are done by madmen and not call them terrorist. Because sorry to say but that word has a positive concentration among people that are sick and tired or being treated badly and that is something that some people aspire to.

Turderer

My good friend came with a really good point after reading what I wrote. He said “I hesitate to use the word ‘madman’ as I feel this promotes unreasonable fear of people who suffer from mental illness. What I’d prefer in this case is something akin to ‘murderer’ and ‘child killer’. Maybe a mix of terrorist and murderer, i.e. turderer. Turd for short.” And I agree with him that there is already enough stigma around mental illness so I don’t want to trough them under the bus as they are already more likely to be difficult situations already such as being thrown in prison because there are lack of facilities to take care of them. So my new way of describing the people that commit these atrocities is Turderes, lets see if that will catch on.

Was it ISIS?

Maybe we will find out that ISIS is behind this, they do have the urge to claim ownership over everything bad tgat happens and I would not be suprised if they start claiming respocebility for natural disaster eventually…but we need to first and foremost talk about how sick these people are in their heads, not give them the attention that’s the contributing part to them acting out in the first place. In many ways these are just grownup toddlers that have access to deadly tools. They are pathetic and so are the people that are trying to benefit from the chaos by posting #FakeNews

Again I recognize that I’m putting a bulls-eye on my head by bringing these things up, both by the online trolls and the other extremist, but the reason I have to write this is that we are not helping when we feed the trolls. Use that energy instead to take actual steps to creating a better world for everyone in it. We can do better.

Geert Wilders, the Dutch Donald Trump, crying after loosing yesterday 😉The inspiring people of AvaazThe media understood that this was an important step towards stemming the tide of fascism in EuropeMedia from all around the world came because of this important election. The results mattered and we show the world that Hope Wins Over HateA lot of energy when Azaaz showed up to celebrate freedomHope Over Hate / Hoop Over Haat!Brilliant performance by AzaazOscar Soria Senior Media Campaigner for Avaaz interviewed by the mediaChristoph Schott Global Campaigner interviewed by the media

Just got back to civilization, were 3 weeks in USA for Thanksgiving 😉 I added a few kg and I’m detoxing after overdosing on all that food…but man its cold here. And if you think its strange that a guy from Iceland is complaining about being cold I always highlight that I have never been as cold as when I moved to the Netherlands.:P However since we are going to India for 3 weeks after Christmas I think I’ll survive. Just take things once day at a time.

I want to acknowledge that I’m aware that I always tell people never to share online if they are aren’t home so they won’t make things easy for burgles however since we practice “Essential Minimalism” I’m sure that our home will be quite disappointing for people to try to rob, unless they are into stealing books and I’m also streamlining that and going digital so that won’t be an issue for us either. I’m doing 30 min of digitizing paper per day…we will see when that project will be done with 😉

What I am doing though regarding security for traveling I do recommend this LastPass blog. I’m going trough all my passwords right now to update then and deconnect my accounts to prevent things going wrong if my digital devices are stolen.

On another subject there is though the small problem that Christmas in the Netherlands is horribly boring. They don’t really celebrate it and don’t have real snow so that just depressing :S but its then up to me to fix that 😉 Just the tough thing is that I get homesick for the best food in the world. What food may that be? Icelandic food of course! Anyone here that is up for creating something epic together?

Also did any of you get selected for the Impact City? Our ideas didn’t…but that is not stopping me. I have been listening to “Hamilton the musical” non-stop (well not non-stop because I’m listening to classical music right now but you get the picture) but the point is that I’m super pumped up to “not going to throw away my shot” and to start standing up for injustice no matter what the consequences. Do or die 🙂

“I picked up a pen, I write my own deliverance” Alexander Hamilton from the Musical Hamilton (BTW I don’t own the picture)

And that brings me to the main point of my rant today. The song”Hurricane” inspired me to “pick up a pen and write my own deliverance”. I have already mentioned the frustrations I have had with the current political and economic system because I truly believe that “We can do better than this” so I’m going to “write my way out”. I can’t expect people to understand if they haven’t been told. I should not be so judgmental because once I didn’t know many of the things I have been so fortunate to get to know. And not everyone has the luxury of the time I have for research.

So if it is to be its up to me. I can’t expect others to do things that I find uncomfortable. I don’t like conflict but there are other people that don’t like to go to bed hungry or worried or scarred. My discomfort is nothing compared to that so many are suffering right now. And “Although no one can to everything, everyone can do something” and incremental improvements beat no improvements…and in the meantime I can work on things that are real paradigm shifts. Looking forward to telling you all about the Impact City projects we are working on.

Until then “history has its eyes on you”, “what side of history are you going to be”?